


foreign, but familiar

by devviepuu



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Aftermath, F/M, Past Lives, Post Sailor Stars, Post-Series, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-03 02:01:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12738747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devviepuu/pseuds/devviepuu
Summary: she brought them back to life.  again.  what do you say after that?





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> i started this five years ago, and it was originally inspired by "quirks" by vievre on ff.net. i must have read that story a thousand times. it is cute and charming and funny. it tackles the difficult subject of anime mamoru. it was my happy place and my escape, but i was dealing with some grief at the time and i wanted to make something slightly darker. 
> 
> then i found the "untethered" series by catbru. 
> 
> i owe a lot to these stories, and if you are, somehow, reading this thing that i have dumped into the ether to get it out of my brain, you should 100% read them. and then go read "the dinner hour" by lyaka. and all of the things by tosca1390.
> 
> the romance elements of this story are all inspired by and occasionally quote from the works of lisa kleypas, courtney milan and loretta chase. read them too, because they are awesome.

Chiba Mamoru knew what it felt like to die.

But this - it wasn't death. It wasn't anything. It was, simply, nothing: an endless dreamscape of blackness where time had no meaning and consciousness was a fading memory, like existence.

In his moments of sanity - when he remembered what that was - he thought of a bright light, almost a presence, and he knew it was her even when he didn't know what 'her' was or why it was important. It was an energy signature in the darkness; it was warmth and comfort and hope even when he didn't know what any of those things were.

Suddenly - because anything is sudden after an indeterminate period of unquantifiable nothingness - that energy is all there is, and it is calling him. Somehow - and he doesn't know why - he follows it until he can see her: naked, glowing with power and trembling with fear. Triumphant.

She is surrounded by others, and they also feel familiar, like words on the tip of his tongue but still out of reach. Something shifts and he knows that she is aware of him - the others have faded away and he closes the remaining distance between them until they are face-to-face.

She touches him.

He can feel the energy - her energy, he realizes - even through the heavy plate armor that envelops his form. The metal is unfamiliar, incongruous, and he is confused. He touches her, the palm of his hand against her chin, lifting her face until their eyes meet. He knows instinctively that she will bring him back to himself, and he lets his entire being radiate at her, this woman he does not know and yet knows with every fiber of his body. He feels her, deep in the soul they share, and recognition returns.

_Serenity._

Her expression changes as she hurls herself against him, burying her face in his chest and pulling his arms around her. Her warm body, her familiar scent and the power he can feel tickling his skin and electrifying his senses - nothing else is seen, or felt, or thought of.

"Endymion," she says, though it is more like a sob, and that is when pain returns. The name brings back not memories, but lightning coursing through his body, tingling in his fingertips and twisting in his gut. The name settles around him, as heavy as the ceremonial armor. There is fire in his chest - in his heart - a wave of startling loss as he remembers that this, actually, is what dying feels like: muscle memory of the cut of a sword and her body draped across his chest.

He is dizzy from her touch, his head spinning from emotions that are both his and hers even though he is wearing gloves to shield him from the psychometry. She seems small in his arms and her face - so similar, and yet so different than what he was used to seeing - her hair bright and golden and strange. His hands burn with the energy and he sees her in flashes: a young girl with roses; in an outfit that oddly resembles the uniforms of the senshi; she grasps the arm of a man in a green jacket that wears his face and together, they walk through a city he does not recognize, a small girl with pink hair between them.

She speaks again, her voice pleading: "Mamo-chan." The tremor in her tone is palpable, but it breaks through the pain and the panic and the visions as he feels his entire body relax at the sound of the name.

His name - her name for him.

Everything stops and the blue of her irises fills his vision; the emotions boiled over and gone and the memories untraceable, already lost. There is only the touch of her fingers running across his arms, bare under his rlled-up shirtsleeves. How long since he has felt her skin against his?

How long, he wonders, has he been gone this time?

He takes her hands, intertwining their fingers and bringing them to rest in the space between their bodies, near his heart.

"Usako," he whispers, breaking the silence before it drowns them. "Oh, god, Usako."


	2. a walk in the park

His life was coming back to him in pieces.

Mamoru followed Usagi down an unfamiliar pathway he was certain he had walked hundreds of times before. Everything was foreign but familiar and the more he tried to focus, the more things slipped from his grasp. An entire life - _his_ entire life - falling back together without rhyme or reason or order and an entire year, gone in the blink of an eye.

And a bench - that seemed to be their destination, Usagi's steps uncharacteristically sure and swift while he was stumbling and clumsy, wondering if his body might actually creak in protest from its disuse. 

It seemed a natural concern considering that he had been dead.

For a year.

And he had not been the only one who died.

With the ease that came from long-standing habit, Mamoru pushed away the feelings - the fear, and the pain, and the awe - and focused on what mattered: Usagi. Her posture was different, he noticed. It was graceful, almost regal, and she stayed close but did not cling. It felt strange to have her so near and yet feel like it was not near enough, standing in front of this bench.

She looked at him, an inquiry he did not have an answer for, and he braced himself. Usagi simply shifted her position and looked toward the sky. The evening air was thick with the promise of summer and he watched her, watched the way she traced a finger through the clouds as though painting the colors of the sunset. The oranges in the sky made her hair change color, the fading light accentuated the contours of her face. A stray, dying sunbeam struck the ring on her fourth finger as she waved her hand in the air, making the metal glow.

The ring. His ring, the ring he had had for months - shoved in a corner of his desk and daring him to give it to her. He didn't know what it meant, but he knew it was hers - it _would be_ hers. And if he gave it to her and ran (it's just for a year, he had said to her then, it's what I've always wanted. Self-improvement and the completion of a long-held dream, is what he had not said, and maybe - maybe - an escape from the pressure of constantly falling short) he wouldn't have to live with the consequences of what he was asking.

Little did he know that he wouldn't have to live with the consequences anyway.

Usagi turned as if to go, and her hand brushed his --

\-- he remembered: this was their bench. It was here, next to this bench, that he had kissed her for the first time - the tiny, fierce and fiery girl who seemed to be the opposite of the graceful, charming and quiet princess he had spent half of his life convinced he wanted. Mamoru wanted her, wanted Usagi, wanted to ignite the agitation in her that she sparked in him, wanted to call out her fire to fan the flames he was engulfed in, wanted to see her eyes light up and her spirit shine through. She had broken down every wall he had constructed for himself and he had fallen in love with her three times over before he even realized it.

Mamoru had put every scrap of that emotion he could force himself to share into that first kiss, wrapping his arms around her as she had kissed him back with everything she had within her. It was sweet, and wild, and devastating, and for an instant the world had been new and beautiful.

Then the skies opened up, and the future hit him in the head; darkness that spanned time and space, spilling into the first truly happy period of his life until it was twisted and broken almost beyond repair. (Breaking her heart broke so much of him, Mamoru still wasn't entire sure he had pieced himself back together.)

Usagi was so much taller now, and if he kissed her, she would come up to his chin. That first time, she had been nearly a foot shorter and Mamoru had needed to bend his head down while she stood on his tiptoes. It hadn't been close enough for her, and she had pulled on his arms for balance and made his neck ache when his shoulders hunched down so they could be closer together.

She was taller, quieter, carried herself differently. What else had changed, while he had been gone? Mamoru was not blind, he had noticed the glances between the man - woman? - called Seiya and Usagi. The strange senshi had left with their princess, but Mamoru had noticed the closeness between Usagi and the woman - man? - that he did not understand. (It hurt to think that he might never understand.)

Usagi watched him watching her and blushed, turning away and beginning to walk again. The silence stayed thick between them and it was so different from the cheerful patter that had filled his hours with energy and happiness. She should have been rushing around like a hurricane, her lips turned up in a wide smile and her eyes clear and bright as a thousand indistinguishable words fell from her mouth.

What else had been lost? How close had they come to losing everything they had fought for? Their friends, their future, their daughter?

No. Mamoru did not accept that. The child, _their child,_ was nothing if not an assurance that one day he would work up the courage to accept everything she offered the way he almost had in front of that bench.

They had been promised an eternity together.

But Mamoru still could not find the words as he watched her pulling ahead of him. Could not step closer instead of stepping back. The litany of his sins ran through his mind: he had been cruel, he had been ambivalent, and she ahd loved him so fiercely it was as if she amplified his existence. Mamoru had protected her from monsters but kept her at arm's length, terrified by how much he loved her and haunted by all of the times he had lost her, failed her, broken her. Mamoru had worn a mask not only to fight, but to love. (Sometimes, Mamoru still wondered if he would ever forgive himself the way she had forgiven him.)

They stood on a hill overlooking the lake and far from all the places he was sure were his usual haunts. When Usagi finally spoke, the unexpected sound gave him a start.

"Mamo-chan?" Her voice was clear and sweet, but soft - hesitant. Her face, usually so open and readable, was closed and blank. There was a knowing quality in her eyes that he had never seen before - a sadness - and then they would flash and Mamoru would feel for a moment like if he tried hard enough, he would be able to hear her thoughts. Which was ridiculous.

But she had never before felt like such a complete enigma to him.

"Yes?"

In the same small voice, she asked, "Do you love me?"

He wanted to be sad or surprised or angry at the question but instead it was just another shock in a night already full of them, though one that had the force of a physical blow. Hadn't Mamoru just been reminding himself of all the reasons she had to ask him exactly that? 

Mamoru shifted next to her until he was standing so close, it almost hurt to go without touching her. "Yes," he said simply. He loved her so much, it was as if his entire life drew meaning only from her. Without her, he was just a man - with her, he was a king. She was love, she was happiness, she was everything he wanted to make his life complete.

"How do you know?"

Every time he looked at her tonight, he saw everything - who she was, what she could become, his heart bared before him. "When I am with you," he said, placing a tentative hand on her cheek (the skin was soft and warm and smooth and familiar), "I am filled with energy." 

They were bound by invisible bonds and cosmically connected, forever. Mamoru did not allow himself to touch her as often as he wanted to, but as she leaned into his caress, he wondered why he ever bothered keeping her away.

She smiled, a simple smile that nonetheless lit up her face, which seemed younger in that moment than it had all night. Normal, even, like she could be any teenage girl, and a far cry from the vision in his mind's eye: a woman broken and bare and victorious and alone, with feathered wings. Mamoru always imagined her to be invincible. He tucked a stray tendril of hair back behind her ear and pulled her close; in his arms, she felt small and somehow breakable. 

He leaned in toward her and she stood on her toes, out of habit, leaving them misaligned until she turned her head to capture his mouth. There was something sad in the shape of her mouth against his; the gentle brush of her lips against him was not enough and he wrapped his arms more tightly around her, feeling the pull of something new as her tongue touched his. It came from somewhere deep and unfamiliar and she shuddered as the impact of it rolled through him.

Mamoru pulled away and opened his mouth to speak. Three words that seemed superfluous but meant everything.

"Come home with me," he said instead.


	3. welcome home

The walked back to his apartment and Mamoru took Usagi's hand in his. It was small and warm and feeling that connection between them gave him his first sense of peace since he had awoken. He stroked her palm with his thumb, rubbing the pad over the metal band on her fourth finger. "Do you ever take it off?" Mamoru asked that question instead of giving voice to all of the doubts flowing through him - about him, about Seiya, about the time he had been gone.

"No." The word was a whisper, but Mamoru felt it thrumming through his body as though it had come from within him.

"You know," he said casually, still not wanting to ask, "you don't have to wear it all the time for me, Usako." _Liar._ If he could use his words, like an adult, like a man fluent in multiple languages, she would wear it - because she would know what it was for and what it meant and because she would want to.

Usagi was looking at him again, and for the first time, it was there - the open, artless and innocent wide-eyed expression of the girl he had fallen in love with. "I don't wear it for you," she said simply. "I wear it for us."

There it was. Something like relief, like laughter, bubbled up through him, and Mamoru nearly fell to his knees. He was the supposed master of words and still it was Usagi who never failed to articulate the most honest truth.

She was quiet after that, but moved closer to him as they walked. Mamoru thought she would have strung her arm through his, linking them, but instead she curved her body into his side and rested her cheek in the hollow of his shoulder. He liked it, and in response he found himself wrapping an arm around her waist, snaking around the small of her back. They fit together so easily that Mamoru was disappointed when it proved impossible to open the door to his apartment building from that position, and even more disappointed when Usagi straightened to her full height so that he could press the call button for the elevator. Mamoru felt warm where her skin had been even as goosebumps dotted his arms and side.

The elevator doors had barely slid shut behind them before he had, quite without thinking, reached a hand into her hair and turned her to face him. In response, Usagi draped her arms loosely around his neck. She was a line of heat against him as he dropped his hand, slowly, from her hair down her back to anchor her at the base of her spine and the taste of her held sweetness and sorrow and a hundred mysteries he couldn't name in a kiss that deepened for an eternity until his knees buckled and his mind went dark and the world changed.

The elevator dinged, announcing their arrival at his floor. Mamoru pulled back and he was slightly out of breath as he said, "I'm sorry, I didn't want to be --"

But Usagi wasn't listening; her eyes were searching, locking on his and taking him in as if she were studying him. Mamoru returned the favor, his mind racing. The more time he spent with her, the better he felt, but he was certain they had never done that before. It had never felt like that before. Her hand splayed across his chest as though she needed to feel his heartbeat beneath her fingertips and his entire body pulsed with warmth that somehow flowed from that point of contact. With a deep breath, Usagi nodded, and led him out of the elevator. She was more intense than he had ever seen her before as she drew him toward his apartment door. Mamoru fumbled for a key that had been lost on an airplane over the Pacific Ocean; usagi had the door open with her own key before Mamoru even realized his was gone.

"Welcome home, Mamo-chan," she said.

\--

Usagi was pacing back and forth across his balcony, restless and agitated, and Mamoru watched her from the inside of the sliding glass door. The full moon left her mostly in shadow, silhouetted with only a gleam of light on her hair. Her hands gesticulated wildly and, from what little he could see, expressions flitted across her face in rapid succession. He tried not to be impatient as he waited for her to come back inside, tried not to wonder as the smell of her lingered around him and bound up with the taste of her still in his mouth. His hands tingled where he had touched her and he felt like he was waking up from a long dream.

It had been the communicator, of course, and Mamoru's only consolation was that he had recognized the familiar sound immediately, as well as the four faces on the live feed. Usagi had taken a moment before she answered it, but the look on her face when she did made him sure that she needed some privacy.

After several minutes, she stopped pacing and her hands stilled. Usagi slid the device back into a pocket and leaned against the glass door, looking up. Whether it was the moonlight or some residual glow from the living room, Usagi was cast in a light that made her ethereal and so beautiful that Mamoru's breath caught in his chest. For a moment, she was the living embodiment of the teary-eyed goddess who had beseeched him from a dream all those years ago, though Usagi was older and sadder and wiser than the apparition in his mind's eye. Three long, delicate fingers trailed down the window glass and he watched her chest expand and then contract with a long breath.

His mouth formed her name and it was almost a prayer, a whisper spoken into the glass of the closed door. As if she had heard him, the figure on the other side stirred and turned to look into his eyes. Mamoru drew a deep breath in an attempt to shake himself out of the vision and pulled the door open to step outside.

"Is everything all right?" Mamoru asked, before he could curse himself over the inanity of the question. He ran a hand through his hair, nervously, as his alleged facility with words deserted him yet again. She still looked pale, so pale her skin was nearly purple, and her eyes were full of unshed tears that she stubbornly shook away before answering.

"Oh, yeah," she said softly, waving a delicate hand in the air as though it were nothing. "They were worried about me. Or maybe I was worried about them." She paused for a minute, and Mamoru sensed Usagi was choosing her words carefully. "It hurts, you know. Having the life forced back into you like that."

Mamoru did not, in fact, know. Whatever magic had pulled him back from beyond always washed away the pain and occasionally the memory. Mamoru had not actually ever thought about it, about what the power might do to her, about what she might feel when it pulled at her soul, because it was easier not to think about it or to imagine the things she had seen and done.

"Also," Usagi was still speaking, "the star seeds. Ami thinks the thing with the star seeds will have some weird side effects. Not like any of the other times." She looked up at him and there was the barest ghost of a smile on her lips, self-deprecating and sad. "I didn't understand what she was saying, to be honest. Something about disruption and confusion - dissociation?" She made it a question. "Is that a word? The gist was bad."

"It's a word," he confirmed, trying to match her smile. "And it makes sense. Dying is definitely disruptive." _Shit._

He meant it as a joke but her smile, already tentative, vanished and Usagi stiffened all over. _Shit, shit, shit._

Mamoru almost never speculated about his previous life, and he had no memories to back it up, but it seemed impossible that Endymion, the dark prince of the Earth whose legendary love had torn apart a planet, had been so painfully inarticulate as he felt right then. The light in Usagi's eyes had faded completely as Mamoru was struck again by the enormity of what she had endured - of everything she would endure.

Normal teenagers did not have such an intimate knowledge of death and loss and love.

Usagi stepped sideways as though to move around him and go back into the apartment. The movement made her hair fall across her face, which was a relief only because the sadness in her eyes threatened to overwhelm him. "Maybe I should go," she said.

Mamoru could let her leave. It's what he would normally do, telling himself that it was for the best. Never admitting that the intimacy between them scared him, that he was afraid - of losing her, of never being good enough, that she would realize he was nothing without her. But it was becoming unbearable with her so near to resist the urge to reconnect in as many ways as possible.

Mamoru felt something in him break - he felt, suddenly, everything at once. She was made for, and from, happiness, while Mamoru spent his entire life scanning the horizon for threats, afraid that any happiness he found would be taken away. He lived in the wreckage of his future - a future so beautiful and so terrifying that sometimes he wasn't sure if he believed in it - and they had nearly lost it, again.

_Stay with me._

Mamoru moved, went to say something - anything - to make her stay. The habits of a lifetime could not be broken in one night, but this was Usagi. She was patient, and forgiving, and he loved her. Before he could even form a syllable he noticed that her eyes had changed - they were open, once again something he could understand and he had to check himself, because he was certain he hadn't said any of that out loud.

His entire body shaking at her nearness, Mamoru closed the difference between them until he was kissing her again. It was desperate, as desperate as he felt, watching her - this woman who was well on her way to becoming a queen. But he knew in that moment that even if the future happened as they had seen it, he would still love Tsukino Usagi. Her mouth against his felt different, innocent and not innocent, her body supple and strong, but her spirit was the same, radiating with the sweetness that had broken through every barrier he had put between them.

_Stay with me._

Her mouth opened under his and she made a soft sound. It was an assault - an electrocution to his senses, as if the world had been black and white and now flooded with vibrant colors. He was on fire, heat rippling wherever she touched him. He felt unshakeable.

And so, so shaken. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry that I make things hard, when they should be easy." Mamoru inhaled the scent of her, dizzy from her perfume and her skin and her touch.

_Stay with me._

Mamoru couldn't name what it was that she brought out of him, but he knew what she would do when he kissed her, how she would twist herself into him; he reacted when she caught his lip between her teeth, marking him as hers, and made him pull her closer like he couldn't pull their bodies against each other tightly enough.

Usagi shifted her head so she could look him in the eye. "I don't want to go," she admitted. "I want to stay, but --"

"Then stay," he interrupted, his voice rough and harsh and unrecognizable. His palms grazed her ass, dragged up her hips. Her fingers curled precisely at his neck, her pelvis brushed against him. It suddenly seemed obvious that his next words would decide their fate, the trail of any and all future interactions.

_Stay with me._

A breath, and then - "Stay the night," he said. "Stay forever."

It took only the smallest shifting of his weight to have her off the ground and fully in his arms, her legs wrapped around his torso. Mamoru carried her like that back over the threshold of his balcony door and into his apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter quotes and remixes ideas from vievre's "Quirks" and Antigone2's "the heartlines on your hand" and "all in"
> 
> Mamoru's speculation about happiness is from Louise Penny's "The Long Way Home"


	4. bedroom

The second time, they made it to the bedroom.

Mamoru had imagined this moment - fantasized about it - countless times and in seemingly infinite variety, beginning about ninety seconds after a crumpled-up paper had hit him on the face one day. In his head, it was something special, a perfect moment worthy of her and what they had been through, a rose-filled night of love and ecstasy. In this hypothetical time, Mamoru would be ready for the physical intimacy and all that she had to offer, and he would see her - all of her - in the filtered moonlight of his curtains, the golden hair he'd spent endless hours dreaming about running his fingers through spread out across the sheets.

It had never, in his wildest imaginings, looked like this: inelegant and desperate and exactly right. the feeling of her in his arms far surpassed any passing fantasies or lingering daydreams, no matter how well-imagined.

Usagi was kissing him again before he had even made it back inside. The door was not entirely closed behind them when she had pressed herself against him, the friction nearly unbearable, and he spun her around and lifted her against the wall.

He wanted to touch her - everywhere - all at once, and indulge in every feeling he had denied them for so many years. The need for more and the desire to take it was building up within him, a force he could not - and maybe did not want to - stop. Her hands were in his hair, her nails scraped across his scalp, her legs wrapped around his waist.

It was like a stranger had taken over his body: he touched her, kissed her, whispered endearments into the line of her throat as her fingers worked the belt buckle at his waist and the buttons at his fly. She knew, somehow, just how to pull him forward with her legs - how to run her fingertips across the nape of his neck to make him groan. (There was the feeling, quickly lost among other feelings, that it had been much the same _last_ time.)

He needed her. All of her, everything.

An urge overcame him, sudden and unfamiliar and second nature all at the same time, and his fingers traced the skin along her thighs and under her skirt and into her. His hands were perfectly steady - his heartbeat was erratic with fear and joy and passion. (Feelings. But she was a goddess in a passion, a blaze in her blue eyes and pale fire in her hair and a blush in her cheeks) A rush of arousal pushed through him as she went wet against his fingertips, the only sign that she took any notice of his intimate intrusion until her hips began to move in time to his tender stroking.

But still, he pulled back - to apologize, even though he couldn't speak; to stop, to think, to clarify. Gasping for air, every inch of him on fire with the feel of her against him, Mamoru looked her in the eye, the question unasked but tangible. Even now, he did not have the words to describe what had just passed between them. Usagi was breathing just as hard as he was, and he could feel her heart pounding, echoing his, even has he felt her trembling.

It was everything he had ever dreamt of, and it was too fast. But Usagi held tight to him, pulling him along, keeping him with her. Reminding him with every brush of skin of what they had, and what they had almost lost. Each kiss felt like a promise and every touch was a privilege; the easy movement of his body as he responded to her - like it was familiar, like it was right - said what was natural, and obvious. He would take her, take this, and he would give her everything he had - every part of his soul. Even the broken pieces.

No more holding back.

It could have been an answer when Usagi pressed a kiss to his lips, the most perfect kiss he had ever experienced, soft and sweet and mesmerizing. Her tongue touched the place she had marked earlier, laying claim to him with her caress, taking his lower lip between hers until he opened for her. The entire world had been knocked off its axis - it was instinct and muscle memory as Mamoru slid his fingers along her spine to her sacrum as the kiss went on, making him strain as she went deeper and demanded more. His hands discovered (rediscovered) every perfect curve, from the arch of her neck to the press of her breasts against him, warm through the thin layer of her dress. The warmth invaded him, melted his thoughts until only longing remained.

_(She made no movement to stop him. He was hungry against her and as he brushed her lips again she pressed herself harder against him. He continued his exploration, his breathing harsh against her neck.)_

She muttered to herself, the words sounding like gibberish to him, and met his gaze. Her hands threaded into his hair and "Please," she said simply, and it was his undoing. He gave himself over to the unbearable need within him. Every part of him seemed to sigh in relief even as his muscles tensed with anticipation. He wanted this, wanted her - their daughter, their future, all of it. Her lips returned to his and her tongue slid into his mouth in a kiss that laid him bare and destroyed him completely.

"Usako," he rasped, "I need --"

More gibberish, and Mamoru realized that she had gotten his shirt unbuttoned. "Usa," he whispered, though it was more like a moan, the sound almost impossible to push through his mouth. He was past confusion and awash in desire, and a part of him wasn't sure if it was hers, or his, or both.

"I know," she said finally. "I know what you need." And her hand reached between their bodies, grasping the hard length of him. Every nerve in his body jumped at the shock, the visceral reaction he had to the feel of her hand gripped around him. It was more arousing than he thought possible; his breath hitched and sped up.

_(Her every trembling limb demanded that he keep going and her hands moved. His skin jumped beneath the sensation of her fingertips and he lost all control as he pushed, her, urgently, against the wall --)_

Mamoru closed a hand over hers as she guided him toward her, circling the most sensitive part of him against her until they were both shaking. He thrust into her and she bit into his shoulder, barely stifling a scream. There was nothing gentle about it, but Mamoru felt it in his soul as he came with a shattering sense of splitting open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a large part of mamoru's thought process in this chapter was inspired by (and quotes from) "seduce me at sunrise," by lisa kleypas and alissa johnson's "a talent for trickery"


	5. usagi

It probably should have hurt, the way he drove into her, but that wasn't something Usagi would think about until much later.

In fact, as Usagi came awake all at once from the first real sleep she had had in months, she was barely capable of thought at all. She was tense and desperately grabbing for air; her mind was racing ahead of her and her skin was flushed as an overwhelming sense of panic competed with the arousal coursing through her body.

It was not the first time this had happened to her in the past year. There had been days when the loneliness had seemed to surround her and all she wanted to do was sleep, knowing that if she closed her eyes again, Endymion would be there. Days when feeling her own fingers against her body seemed like the only thing keeping her on the side of the living as she dreamt of him, wanting him to complete what her mind was showing to her.

Nightmares spilling over into memories until she would lie awake, fighting off the urge to vomit, because she knew that if she slept, if she allowed herself to dream, Endymion would be the focus of that dream. Usagi had relived every meeting, every kiss, every caress, until eventually she would witness the moment of his death - a sword thrust through her chest as she contemplated the death of her soulmate.

Tsukino Usagi was complicated. She contained more than a seventeen-year-old should.

Usagi's body curled up against itself, trying to brace her for the wave of anxiety that rolled over her as she reached out, grasping for something - anything - that would anchor her in the present.

What she encountered was warmth, the warmth of a body lying beside her. A presence, whole and home and _breathing_ , his chest rising and falling under the gentle pressure of the hand that landed on his chest. Her fingers hovered just above his heart and she could feel it, beating beneath her fingertips.

Mamoru, not Endymion. Mamoru, alive.

Not dead.

Only now that it had been reversed - now that _she_ had reversed it, somehow pulling the impossible from her crystal, from her body and her soul again, could Usagi even admit it, but she knew that he had been dead. Mamoru had been taken from her enough times - she knew what it felt like, how the grief took over and sent shock waves through her soul.

And Mamoru's was not the only death she remembered.

Maybe that was why the dreams had started. Ami might have told her, if Usagi had asked, but she couldn't. It felt too private, too personal, and it would have been admitting that what she felt was real. Usagi was dying inside, and possibly going insane - her dreams were so real she may as well have been awake - but she laughed, and joked, and acted much like she normally did, though maybe it sometimes took her a little longer to react to the people around her as she hid her feelings behind a smile that stretched too far at the corners of her mouth.

It wasn't like her, Usagi knew. She had always worn her heart on her sleeve. But Serenity had had to keep secrets, once, and it was easier than she would have thought to hide her emotions from her friends' constant vigilence and care.

Usagi took a deep breath, pushing the air out from the back of her throat the way that Rei had taught her, and rolled onto her back. Mamoru was real, and alive, and the feeling of him against her skin and inside of her had been a revelation - so much more than what her memory offered, and every sensation amplified in their moment of completeness. It had been a moment wrapped in power, and Usagi had felt it as the strands of golden and silver magic wove between them.

It was not a fragment from someone else's life, it was her own, and that meant everything.

Usagi allowed herself another deep breath, feeling the air pooling in her chest and expelling it audibly, trying to force the panic out of her. It was a simple action, but it brought her back to herself as she realized the visions that interrupted her sleep had faded. She shifted, the feeling of another person in the bed with her strange and familiar at the same time, and watched the rhythm of his breathing. A thought occurred to her and Usagi reached out, experimentally, to trace the muscles along his chest, trailing her fingertips across his bare skin.

The visions swirled around her once more, but this time, Usagi was ready for them. Her eyes fluttered shut as she pulled her hand away from Mamoru's body. In command, once more, of her own thoughts, Usagi pulled another memory to the surface. It was easier than it should have been.

_("The way that he looks at me, Venus - talks to me - holds me in his arms - it makes me feel I am safe in a land beyond anger, fear or pain. The Terrans call that Elysion, do they not?" Serenity paused and allowed her eyes to meet her guardian's, searching for answers. "I feel him, even when we are separated, as if we are still together. I dream of him, dreams that feel so real he might be physically with me, sharp and distinct in my mind. Like I do not know where I begin and he ends.")_

Serenity's memory told Usagi that Venus had not wanted to answer her charge, having already hauled her back from the blue planet. There had been a masquerade, a grand ball in honor of Endymion's birthday, and Serenity had dressed like a fairy princess and felt like the queen of the universe as she danced in his arms. It had been the first time - that Serenity knew of - when Venus had followed and found her on the forbidden planet.

_("Is that so?" The goddess of love and beauty asked softly, dangerously._

_"You know it is," the princess answered. "And you know why. Do you not think it is time that I knew, also?"_

_"You're soul-mates," the guardian replied in a precise and clipped tone. "Soul-bonded.")_

Serenity had not known what that meant or why Venus had been so unhappy about it, but given all that had transpired since then Usagi had a pretty good idea of why her guardian had been afraid that day. In retrospect, it was kind of a miracle that Venus hadn't tried to kill him.

_("Our souls --" Serenity struggled to find words. "They're tied together?"_

_"More than that," Venus said with a sigh, giving in. "More than love, even. Between the two of you there is no separation; you are as one being. And each of you must balance the other: yin and yang, light and darkness." Venus paused before using the most obvious comparison. "The Earth and the Moon, in constant orbit, yet neither able to exist without the other.")_

And it was true that from the moment Usagi felt his presence back in this world, earlier tonight, she had also felt his emotions, sharp and ragged and pressing against her mind in a way she had not known was possible in this life. Mamoru had come back to her confused and disoriented, and it had only been when she said his name - not Endymion, but her name for him in this time, _Mamo-chan_ , that his mind had seemed to settle. His emotions had dimmed, becoming separate from her own, and Usagi sensed that Endymion's memories were still buried quite deep within Mamoru. 

Whereas Usagi could remember Serenity's life as clearly as her own childhood.

With his face relaxed in the warm cocoon of sleep instead of the cold grip of death, Mamoru probably didn't even know that he was dreaming right now. But Usagi knew - knew with every cell in her body - because that was what had awoken her, and she could feel it running through her when she touched him.

Usagi couldn't face those dreams, of the time when Serenity and Endymion had been lovers - not tonight, not when her own recollections were seared across her brain from all of these past months. Serenity's experience reminded her that it was possible, of course, to shield herself from the press of his emotions, but it required calm and she was awake and restless. She carelessly draped Mamoru's discarded shirt over her and slid out of the bed, walking carefully and silently with only one glance back to make sure that Mamoru was still there - still breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> parts of this chapter were inspired by "lifted from the depths," a fic on ff.net by red-elephant


	6. aftermath

Usagi stepped into the living room and pulled the door closed behind her, though she was careful not to shut it all the way. She didn't think she could handle having mamoru out of her sight at the moment. The little slit she allowed herself kept him in view and left room for a trickle of light from the bedroom window to come through.

Usagi had wondered, once, if she really knew Mamoru's apartment well enough to walk around in the darkness, and this seemed as good a time to test the theory as any. She shrugged herself all the way into Mamoru's shirt and was just doing up the buttons when she saw it.

A silver streak, several inches long, down the front of her abdomen. The skin was smooth and the mark was pale, a long-healed scar.

_(The world had been silent to her ears the moment Endymion drew his last breath, dead from a blow meant to kill her. Her guardians were falling one by one around her and her soul was ripped to shreds. All of the threads connecting her to the people she loved were severed and gone.)_

Senshi didn't scar.

_(Desperate for something, anything, to grab on to, her hand brushed the hilt of his sword. She didn't have his ability to read objects but Serenity felt the rush of his energy against her skin, into her body until she was choking on it. The movement took only seconds - the witch was still distracted -_

_"I'll be with you soon," she promised him, promised all of them. Serenity grasped the hilt with both hands.)_

Usagi's breath started coming in rapid, heaving sobs; her body started to stiffen in a fresh wave of panic. She looked toward the sink and gave serious consideration to throwing up as the old grief roiled through her, made fresh again by recent events. Serenity had felt each of them dying that day - her guardians, her best friends, and each death took a piece of her with them. And then - Endymion - when he died, it had taken her soul.

It felt the same, today - yesterday - losing all of them again. It had never been like that before, not once since the battle that ended the Silver Millennium. Even in this life, against Beryl, she had been able to feel them - to feel their presence and their power and their loved and know that they were still, somehow, with her. She had been young enough and naive enough to believe in the power of her own wish and know that everything would be all right.

Yesterday, what Usagi had felt was loneliness - despair, anger, powerlessness. But she wasn't going to let it all end like that without a fight. Not this time.

And that was when it happened - when everything started to change.

Usagi had the overwhelming urge to pull her communicator from the mess of clothes strewn around the living room, to call them and beg them to come and visit with her. For a minute, more than anything, she wanted to see them, standing in front of her, where she could touch them and know for sure they were real. She couldn't find the communicator in this darkness, though, and with the smallest amount of focus and will she conjured a small light to hover in front of her.

And jumped in surprise at the shadows it threw across the room. _Oh, no. Goddess, no._

In those final moments, the power she had reached for had gone deeper and farther than anything she'd tried before, and Usagi felt it spreading through her body like lightning through her cells. It had shattered her _henshin_ and left something new and different in its wake.

Usagi contemplated the witch-light, definitely not prepared to consider its implications, and stifled a moan. _Focus._ The communicator. Cleaning. That's what she was doing, picking up the piles of clothes. It wasn't something she ever did at home but it was what Mamoru would have wanted --

 _Don't._ She reprimanded herself, silently, though tears were gathering in her eyes again. _Mamoru is alive. Not dead._ Usagi focused on her breathing, forcing the panic and the anxiety from her body instead of letting it overwhelm her.

It was stuffy in the apartment, that was it; the air was suffocating her. The witch-light cast an eerie glow over the room and seemed to highlight every speck of dust that covered all of the surfaces. What was it Ami had said? Dust is made up mostly of dead human skin cells? That's what it smelled like: dead skin and emptiness, and it was smothering her. Usagi was suddenly desperate to let the fresh air in. She walked to the window, the witch-light trailing behind her, and opened it.

She closed her eyes to inhale the scent of the summer night and did not see the black shape on the sill until it hissed to get her attention.

Usagi nearly jumped out of her skin but managed not to scream. "Luna!" She opened her eyes and directed a glare at the cat. "Where did you come from?"

The cat returned her glare-for-glare with a meaningful side-eye at the witch-light. "Mau," she said, and there was an edge in her voice Usagi did not like.

"Sarcasm," Usagi said quietly, "is unbecoming." She pressed her back against the wall and slid down to the floor, letting gravity and the weight of her emotions do the work. Everything was too heavy and too much and the world was spinning. She was not going to explain to Luna what had happened to her; not tonight, and not every night for the past year. A year she spent remembering him, under the spells of amnesia - his eagerness for her blood - the coldness from the times he had pushed her away from him - the heat of the days in another time when they had been lovers. The hollow voice on his answering machine and the fading view of a plane leaving Tokyo International Airport. A year of nights spent in a haze of not knowing if she was Usagi or Serenity and haunted by the love she had lost in both lives. 

And, oh, goddess, there had been no one to fill the void when he had left. She'd had the girls. And Seiya. Seiya had dulled the ache and maybe it was a kind of love, but Usagi could never give her what she wanted. 

"Don't tell anyone," Usagi whispered, gesturing vaguely at the light hovering above them like that explained anything. "Don't, Luna, and don't wake Mamoru -- they can't -- I don't want him to see me like this."

Mamoru was alive. They _all_ were. In spite of everything she had somehow called them back to her. She had been by herself and it had changed her. Her friends, allies, sisters and soulmate - Usagi had seen all of it crumble, all of them dead, and still she fought harder than ever. When they came back, Usagi smiled - trying to mean it - because it was expected of her. She wanted to mean it, wanted to know in her heart that their future was intact and that this was not another fleeting victory.

They had an eternity, but what Usagi wanted was _time_. To breathe, to live, to love. Peace was fleeting and ephemeral and the desperate dream of a naive, innocent girl. Tsukino Usagi might be complicated, but she was neither naive nor innocent. Not anymore.

It was hard, sometimes, not to imagine her future playing out the way she remembered her past: remarkable, beautiful and temporary. Nothing beautiful lasted. That's what she had learned then and had driven home to her over and over again in this life.

The world had stopped spinning, but Usagi's head still hurt, and she could feel a buzz of silver energy in her fingertips. Usagi half expected to send jolts of the magic out of her shaking hands until she noticed the small black head using her wrist like a pillow. There was the soothing vibration of a purr against her skin; Luna had crept up to her and crawled into her lap. It was a gesture of love and comfort almost unprecedented from the cat that had been part mother, part sister and full-time taskmaster.

"I'm supposed to be happy now, Luna," Usagi said, giving herself over to sobbing and extinguishing the witch-light before she lost control of it. It was easier to cry in the dark, easier to whisper her secret fears. "We're safe, we're all alive, and now - what - we act like nothing happened? I don't think I can do that this time, Luna."

"It's okay, Princess," Luna said, rubbing her forehead against Usagi's hand. "Something did happen, and you found out that when things are at their worst, and stakes are at their highest, you're at your best." A paw touched her forearm and Usagi looked down. "Your mother would be so proud of you."

They sat like that for some time, with Usagi scratching the cat's ears, and Luna accepting the gesture. The rhythm of the stroking gave Usagi something to focus on, and eventually the tears began to subside. "Luna," she said finally, "how am I supposed to move on from this?"

Before the cat could answer, Usagi felt him. She hadn't heard the door open but his presence began to chase away the thoughts that held her down. His face was barely distinguishable in the poor light; the vivid blue of the eyes that had not changed in centuries was hidden in the shadows. The look was overwhelming at a time when she was already overwhelmed by him, and she felt him - deep in the soul they shared.

"Usako," his voice was barely above a whisper but she thrilled to hear the sound of his name for her on his lips. "How long have you been out here?"

"Mamo-chan, I--"

"It felt like--"

Usagi could imagine what it felt like, her emotions out of control and her mind unable to contain them. Fear and sadness and anger - it probably felt like the pull at his soul when Sailor Moon needed him.

"You scared me," was all he said. "I thought you had left." He noticed the shape in her lap and managed a sheepish grin. "Luna, hello."

The cat avoided eye contact. "Mamoru," she said with a nod of her head, though Usagi could hear the suggestion of an honorific that had once, and might again, accompany the name. Luna looked at Usagi and said only, "Have a good night."

In spite of herself, Usagi felt a small smile. Mamoru hadn't pulled on any clothes before coming to look for her, and he looked exactly as beautiful as Serenity remembered. The shifting shadows threw every detail of him into stark relief; long sinewy lines that conveyed both elegance and power. Endymion had always been comfortable with his own nakedness.

Mamoru closed the window behind Luna and caught Usagi's arm, pulling her up to meet him on the sill. Usagi wondered if he could feel the rush of magic as their hands touched - his hands were warmer than hers and sent little bolts of electricity through her and pushed goosebumps on her bare skin. She tried to force her thoughts into some kind of coherent order, but gave it up when his hand cupped her cheek and she could picture him, even in the dim light, trying to discern the secrets he could normally read straight from her face.

Usagi pulled him down to her, feeling the dip of his body as he pent forward. She had never wanted anything in her life as she did in this moment. "Kiss me," she demanded.

"Usa," he groaned. "When you talk like that I can't understand what you're saying." He complied anyway and Usagi decided to ignore the long-dead language of the Silver Millennium the same way she had ignored the witch-light.

Mamoru bent down and caught Usagi's lips, his hand creeping into her hair and fisting at the nape of her neck. Usagi arched into him and he stole her breath and thought and words, his lips and tongue promising everything she could ever hope for.

Sweet goddess, this was what she needed: for the past to be the past, and the future to be the future, and to have their time together right now. It didn't matter who was Usagi or Serenity or Mamoru or Endymion, not when she could feel him - all of him, not just the body against hers but the golden rush that was him, that pulsed with life and called so strongly to her, all the things that made Mamoru who he was. His essence tangled up in hers and Usagi realized that she had always seen Endymion in him - had always felt his presence beneath the Mamoru of this life. She had always felt his passion - subtle, but all-consuming and even agonizing in its intensity - bubbling beneath the surface.

His hands caught on her bare skin and her fingers were in his hair and she felt the warmth in her chest, right at her heart, and smiled. It was a real smile, possibly the first one she had managed since his plane had taken off. She hung an arm around his neck and settled her head into his shoulder as he carried her back to the bedroom and laid her out along the bed against the cool black sheets. Mamoru pressed his face to the skin of her navel, breathing deeply.

"I love you," he whispered so quietly that she thought he hadn't said it at all, except she heard the words echo in her mind and across her soul. She held him, fingers in the softness of his hair, as he whispered again: "I love you." And again it hummed through her as he repeated the words like a benediction, worshipping her with his mouth and his hands and his body. It was a physical reminder that this was really happening, that they were both here. There's so much more to talk about and to figure out and to deal with but for right now, this was enough.

Usagi pushed the past away, and with it the despair and the darkness. Only now mattered - this lifetime, this moment, this sense of belonging. She couldn't help it when the tears spilled over again, but it was more than exhaustion and more than relief.

It might even be joy.

**Author's Note:**

> i've always wondered:
> 
> 1 - what happened next  
> 2 - what they remembered, and who they became.
> 
> i know the manga kind of gets at this - it is hugely implied, if not outright canon, that all of them remember pretty much all of it. but the anime was much more ambiguous and i have been fascinated by it since the first time i worked out who chibiusa was.


End file.
